Messages - stlaleman

Not sure I like the term "mastermind".......Anyway, congrats on the vigerous boil! I tend to loose about 1.5-1/75 gallons per hour myself and folks tell me I boil hard! The plus side is, as your batches get larger, you'll boil off the same amount, as loss is do to surface area not depth. You have two choices, collect your wort as usual and add water to equal your loss or turn down your heat. I, myself, like the hard boil, better hop utilization and more undesirable flavors/aromas driven off.Am glad you like it, a little fine tuning and everything should be good to go.

I used it last year, made the best old ale I ever had! Only "special precaution" I used was to use an old racking cane. This was over a year ago, with no issues in the dozens of meads, ciders, and ales I have made since. Proper sanitation, discard the plastic tubing after use, no worries.

St Louis Brews is offering the Brewhemoth, a half barrel conical fermenter, as the Best of Show prize. It will be shipped anywhere in the lower 48 free of charge. You can only win if you enter. Competition information at http://happyholidayhomebrewcompetition.blogspot.com/

If you can do without a lid, the Penrose Kettle is 16+ gallon, stainless, 14 gauge, with a half inch ball valve for only 139.99 which includes shipping to the lower 48 states. Details email me at dpenrose at essexind dot com

I have a 5 liter barrel that I have used for ciders. I filled it with boiling water let it soak a few days, drained, repeated several times then filled with a pear cider. The pear cider picked up a nice oaky character after several weeks in the course of drinking it. Was quite pleased.

The various holes are taped off or capped, then the entire conical was lowered in a tank of weak acid with electrodes attached. Chunks of solid copper are atteched to the other set of electrodes. Between the current and the acid, copper is moved from one the chunks to an even coating on the fermenter. Not sure if any more will be made, there are a couple glitches that need to be worked out first. But it does look nice, gives the pub an older look. Now to finish the kegerator and redo the walls and floor....